Me personally, I consider a Stage I a cosmetic upgrade. There's a little bit of performance gain, but I don't think the cost warrants the increase in performance.
A Stage II costs a relatively small amount more than a Stage I, and the performance increase is significant.
Replacing the head pipe and/or removing the catalytic converter will void your warranty. Aftermarket parts will void your warranty as well.
If you want to keep your warranty, you should stick with H-D parts / stage kits.

Personally, I would advise against a Stage IV. It makes the bike twitchy and borderline unrideable in regular traffic. A Stage III would be the highest I'd go if you're not going to race your bike. A Stage III is also the last big leap in performance. The gains of a Stage IV over Stage III again don't warrant the cost associated, in my humble opinion.

 

I rode my 2011 RK 96" with a stage 1 for a number of years and thought it was a nice seat of the pants power and throttle response improvement over stock--SE intake backplate, Fuelmoto 2-1-2 headpipe and mufflers, and Fuelmoto tune w/Dynojet powervision. Had very good mileage as well, always 52-53 mixed town/secondary highway. Avoid true duals if looking for better performance; they're just for sound.

It did run out of poop over 4K rpm, however, and while that may not sound like a big deal depending on riding style, I found passing on long grades at elevation in CO mountains was often a choice between running out of steam in a lower gear or lugging in higher gear which caused detonation/pinging at warmer ambient temps. I got a different tune from FM to address pinging, but that just backed off 2-4 degrees of timing across rpm/map range which noticeably reduced power and fuel mileage, so not a very good fix.

I guess if I were running around relatively lower elevations and/or not pulling long grades in the rockies I may never have bothered with cams, and certainly wouldn't have upped displacement to 107 (which I suspect probably wasn't worth it even from 96). Really depends on how and where you ride. With an 88" motor you're starting with a little less yet, so maybe cams and bump to 95" or 98" is more justified.

 

I'm so confused....

 

As mentioned, true Duals won't do it. I have em on one of my bikes as I like them, bit if want some additional pep, some good advice already given. Just isn't in the direction of true Duals.

 

True duels just rob you of power . Waste of time. You are better off staying with stock. if you want some more noise out of it some reasonable muffles will help with out robbing you of power.

 

reduced heat versus power, my choice is reduced heat

 

Fundamentally, yes. The camshaft is the thing that determines what the engine is like, and where it makes it’s power. The other changes affect how well it all works.

The stock camshaft is a compromise. It strives for gas mileage, emissions, smooth idle, docile power. Which isn’t inherently bad!

So you have to be as realistic as possible about what you want, and what matters to you, when picking a camshaft.

Do you want the bike to be able to idle through town? How important is drag racing vs roll on power? Additional heat, gas mileage, etc.

There are some good, mild, camshafts that increase overall power and performance. They don’t optimize high rpm power, but they do increase regular riding performance. You’ll probably lose some gas mileage with them, and you may feel more heat.

 

on my 02 FLHTC I run cobra true dual head pipes and a set of stock CVO slip ons. mostly run the true dual cause I like the look of it lol

 

Agreed with the rest above. Great sound upgrade IMHO. Not much HP improvement. I like the true dual look also.

 

Yesterday i changed the plugs and oil. Tomorrow my stage 2 RGS goes from its stock header, with the cat, and SE slip ons to the Khrome Werks 3 step headers and Dominator 4.5" Slip ons with no fkn cat and Performance inserts

I'm looking for a big decrease in the heat and a slight increase in hp. Then it's off to Joe, one of the best dyno guys in the northeast. I'll post the dyno chart when I get it. Will discuss tuners with him. Leaning to the Power Vision.